In Dubious Battle - Characters

Characters

• Doc Burton – A doctor who, despite his skepticism of leftist views, works in the strikers' camp, ensuring that it cannot be disbanded on the basis of a lack of sanitation.
• Jim Nolan– New member of the "Party," whose political development is one of the book's central themes. His father was a Communist himself, and was legendary as one who fought.
• London – the second, but more significant, elected leader of the striking workers
• Mrs. Meer – Jim's landlady
• Harry Nilson – Party official who initiates Jim's application process for the Party
• Roy Nolan – Jim's father (killed three years earlier)
• Mr. Webb – Manager at Tulman's Department Store, where Jim worked who denies knowing Jim when he hears he is a radical.
• May Nolan – Jim's older sister who mysteriously disappears at a young age
• Mac McLeod – Party organizer and Jim's mentor
• Dick Halsing – "pretty boy" party member in charge of soliciting Party sympathizers for donations
• Joy – naive, possibly brain-damaged from police brutality, aggressive party member; World War I veteran
• Alfred Anderson – Owner/operator of Al's Lunch Wagon; Communist sympathizer and son of a small farmer.
• Sam – "lean-face", a picker
• Lisa – London's daughter-in-law who is assisted by Mac when in labor
• Dan – an old picker whose fall from a rotten ladder initially causes the other workers to take strike action
• Dakin – leader of pickers at the Hunter place
• Alla – Dakin's wife
• Jerry – a picker at Hunter's who favors strike
• Al Anderson – Alfred's father, small farm owner, proud of his dogs
• Burke – Dakin's assistant
• Albert Johnson – truck owner
• Bolter – President of the Fruitgrower's Association who attempts to negotiate with the strikers